Halo 5: Guardians will run in native 4K on Xbox One X

At the E3 2017 conference, Microsoft finally showed “Project Scorpio”, named Xbox One X, along with a list of games that would run in true 4K on the new console. Halo 5: Guardians was not on it, and the series did not even appear on stage.

Weeks later, 343 Industries explained that it was not yet ready to make the announcement during the show, but confirmed that Halo 5 would receive an update for “true 4K” released alongside the launch of the Xbox One X, set for November 7, 2017. It would not be a remaster or a re-release: the same game, updated, with improved graphics only on the Xbox One X. The studio said it would have more details closer to launch.

The console’s numbers help explain the promise: the Xbox One X had 6 teraflops of graphics power, 12 GB of GDDR5 memory (9 GB available to games) and an eight-core AMD processor at 2.3 GHz. In practice, that means much more headroom than on the original Xbox One, where Halo 5 used very aggressive dynamic resolution to hold 60 frames per second. According to Digital Foundry’s measurements at launch, the game dropped as low as 1152×810 in heavy scenes.

And anyone with an Xbox One X but no 4K TV would also get something: thanks to the console’s supersampling, the image is rendered at a higher resolution and scaled down to the screen, which makes the graphics cleaner even at 1080p. Translated from the jargon: less jagged edges, even without changing your television.

In the same announcement, 343 also confirmed that Halo 3, Halo 3: ODST, Halo 4 and Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary, from the Xbox 360, would join Xbox One backward compatibility, with the paid map packs released for free.

What came next

The Xbox One X reached stores on November 7, 2017 and was Microsoft’s top-of-the-line console until 2020, when production of the Xbox One family wound down over the year and the generation passed to the Xbox Series X and Series S.

Source: 343 Industries.